1. Field of the Invention
The present general inventive concept relates to an ink cartridge of an image forming apparatus, and more particularly, to an ink cartridge which has a plurality of print head chips to jet ink onto a printing medium and print a predetermined image, an image forming apparatus, and a method to manufacture the ink cartridge.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, an image forming apparatus such as an ink jet printer jets ink onto a desired position of a printing medium, thereby printing an image of a predetermined color on the printing medium.
Such an image forming apparatus includes an ink cartridge which has a plurality of print head chips arranged in a predetermined pattern along an entire width direction of a printing medium to print an image on the printing medium. Ink cartridges are divided into an integral type and a separate type according to how the plurality of print head chips is arranged on a print head substrate.
In the integral type ink cartridge, a plurality of print head chips having a plurality of nozzles to jet ink is integrally formed with the print head substrate. Alternatively, in the separate type ink cartridge, individual print head chips having the plurality of nozzles are separately fabricated and are arranged on a single print head substrate. That is, the integral type ink cartridge and the separate type ink cartridge differ from each other in that respective print head chips thereof having the plurality of nozzles are fabricated integrally and separately.
In the integral type ink cartridge described above, the plurality of print head chips are molded simultaneously and thus gaps between nozzles are constant so that the integral type ink cartridge can produce an image of good quality. However, if one of the print head chips is impaired, an other non-impaired print head chips are useless and thus an efficiency of using the ink cartridge decreases.
As a solution to this problem of the integral type ink cartridge, the separate type ink cartridge removes only an impaired print head chip and replaces the impaired print head chip with a new print head chip.
However, the separate type ink cartridge has a problem that gaps between the plurality of print head chips are misaligned in directions of X or Y with reference to a plane of the print head substrate or in a direction of rotating about a predetermined point. This misalignment between the plurality of print head chips causes a discontinuous area in a color image such as a color band and consequently results in a color leakage, which degrades an image quality.